Tuesday, 13 January 2015

I could hardly believe my eyes… as I got closer to the last repeat of the Butterfly Doily - the one that's been more than 2½ years in the making! - I realised, with horror, that it wouldn't fit! Although everything was fine all the way through, there must have been some discrepancy somewhere as the last butterfly wouldn't fit. I could have cried. Now, normally I would undo and fix but NOT THIS TIME! This has not been my favourite tat by a long way but I just had to complete it once I got far enough into it. The circumference on the last round is about 96 inches!! That's a lot of tatting, and I had to refill my shuttles frequently. I have no idea where I might have missed something along the way so that the last round wouldn't work out. I knew though, that if I had to un-do and re-do anything on this particular piece, it would probably never get completed again. I've just not enjoyed it enough.

So I made it fit.

Actually I could fit the last butterfly but what I was short of was a ring below to attach the second half of it. I'm afraid in this case, I improvised and changed the bottom part slightly to make it fit in what I hope is a not-too-obvious manner. If you examine the whole edge closely, you'll see it but I think at a glance, it's not glaringly obvious. Phew!

Ok, enough of an introduction, here it is:

and here with a shuttle

for size reference

I couldn't remember how many balls of Lizbeth I used…

so I weighed my doily: 88 grams

(not much weight for all that work!)

so that 3½ balls of Lizbeth Mocha Light.

I'm certainly pleased I finally got to the end (even if not perfectly)

If just for that reason, I'm going to celebrate.

I even widened the columns of my blog for this post

so I could have one larger image of the completed piece.

It does look rather nice on this last photo.

Yes, you're right, my title was a tad over the top (I was just having a laugh and being a bit of drama queen!), obviously, it's not that tragic and I have a large piece of lace to show for but I wouldn't recommend this particular design for anyone else to tat. After the second round of butterflies, I wasn't really enjoying myself and all those long chains kept misbehaving and needed a lot of coaxing into place. I debated when I got to the last round whether I needed to change the stitch count slightly to try to get it to frill less. In the end I went with what was written but in spite of all my efforts, it still doesn't lie flat properly, which is a shame… and then to get to the last butterfly and find that I couldn't attach that last chain…

Anyway, enough about it. Thank you so much for cheering me along. Your words of encouragement always mean a lot to me. At last, it's done. Dusted. Time to move on. Definitely happy about that. :-)

Saturday, 10 January 2015

Oh yes, I just love snowflakes! Tatted snowflakes? Wonderful. Snowflake earrings and a brooch? Yes, please (you've seen all those recently on my blog). I'm thinking of the next blanket I'd like to make… and then I saw… a snowflake blanket! Not ready to start on that yet, but I had to give the motif a go, just to see…

I rather like it.

This might very well be my next big crochet project.

And on the crochet front again, I recently received a nice surprise in the post from a friend: not only did she send me some Fa-brick to try (I'll report on that soon) but also enclosed some yarns for me to play with. One of them was this Euroflax which is 100% linen. It's quite unusual and I must admit feels a bit like thin rope (or twine) to work with but I'm told this yarn will soften a lot by being washed and dried in the machine. I'm hoping I'll have enough for a short scarf/cowl and can't wait to report back after I've washed it to see what it turns out like. I really like the shade of muted mauve and it will go very well with a cardigan I'm wearing today. I love getting surprises in the post and I'm so appreciative of friends I have made through tatting. Thank you very much M.!

Thank you also to all of you for your wonderful words of encouragement on the last post. I'm working at it and am really very nearly there on the huge doily. Can't wait to show you!

Thursday, 8 January 2015

has got to be to finish this doily!!! Over two years in the making is just too long (started in April 2012 so I'm getting dangerously close to three years even!). Come on, I need one last push to get it completed. Send me some encouraging vibes please so I can finally finish it and move on to something else. I'm already feeling excited about what the next large piece is going to be...

The bit of plastic on the ribbon is

my picot gauge.

So, has everyone made a good start to their tatting in 2015? - or other projects of course.

Saturday, 3 January 2015

Just enjoying the last few days of chilling out with the family. Everything starts again on Monday… school, work…

It's also the last evening with our festive Christmas decor. I've lit up the candles one last time and I do enjoy seeing the sparkly decorations and the twinkling lights on the tree. Tomorrow it's time to put everything away ready for a fresh new year start on Monday.

Happy New Year Everyone!

Where better to put pretty candles…

than on some nice tatting.

Bonne Année

à toutes et tous!

I hope 2015 is kind to everyone and that it's another year filled with ideas and creativity. Peace and good health to all.